Real power isn’t the ability to imagine and implement an endless series of new solutions to old problems, but to awaken the higher understanding that allows us to transcend the need we have to live with any painful problems at all. Which would you rather have: a big fire hose with a hydrant and a fire to put out every day, or a life without fires in them?

But what we have to examine here is the way we think! Most of us wouldn’t know what to do if there wasn’t something pressing us. Isn’t it weird that we’ll come up with a path, a solution, something that we’re going to do, that once we do it we’ll become whatever we’ve imagined? No more pressure, no more fear — but then, the very thing that we set out to obtain, to make us fearless, to take the pressure out of our lives, becomes the source of a new fear and a new pressure! And then when that doesn’t work, we do it again, and again.

We have no idea of the power that we’re created with. We are granted at birth the possibility of a freedom that has absolutely no contingencies whatsoever that can fall apart because the conditions in our lives do.

The kind of power I’m talking about is so simple. For instance, ordinarily we’re trying to obtain things so that we can control or manipulate conditions, but we’re not talking about that. Instead, how about the authority over our own negative reactions? That’s a completely different kind of power, isn’t it? To possess ourselves as opposed to trying to possess things or relationships through which we have a measure of security. The power to possess ourselves can’t be granted by anyone or anything outside of us. It doesn’t exist; nothing can grant us what it is our heart of hearts actually longs for which is to be quietly in charge of our own heart and mind.

Work to remember that at any given moment you don’t have to be captured by anything that presently causes this compromise of your soul. Remember, always, that higher possibilities are never farther away from you than your wish and work to be open to them.

Guy Finley

Best-selling "Letting Go" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas go straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues -- relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom -- and lead the way to a higher life.

Guy is the acclaimed author of The Secret of Letting Go and 38 other books and audio programs that have sold over a million copies in 18 languages worldwide. In addition, he has presented over 4,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 25 years and has been a guest on over 600 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, and many others.

Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute, and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a non-profit Center for Self-Study in Merlin, Oregon. 200,000 people in 142 countries read his popular Key Lesson emails each week. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations.

In addition to his writing and appearance schedule, Guy presents four inner-life classes each week at Life of Learning Foundation in Merlin, Oregon. These classes are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Guy Finley and his life-changing work, visit guyfinley.org.

"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential."
-Nightingale Conant

"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives."
-Barnes and Noble